Sunshine on a rainy day

Today's bride is very lucky, it rained . . . a lot and apparently that is supposed to be good luck!

Thankfully the bridesmaids were wearing soft yellow to brighten a grey day and carried bouquets of sweet peas, scabious, feverfew and spray roses.

The bride had a combination of roses, spray roses, sweet peas, scabious, feverfew and lysimachia all combined with senecio and herbs and a touch of grass to give it a more country feel. 

And all but the roses home grown.

Star performer

 

The sweet peas this week are on fire!

They literally are bursting in to flower the second I turn my back.

So this weeks bouquets are full of them and smell amazing.

Penshurst Farmers Market 4th June... the result

What a start to the season at Penshurst Farmers Market. With the sun shining and my glamorous assistant in tow (hubby), we set off with a car full of beautifully scented bouquets and jam jars, along with scented, edible and bee loving plants.

All seemed to be a huge success and we sold out of all of our cut flowers.

Here is a taster of what we were selling and what we hope to have more of for the July market.

 Collection of vintage china floral displays.

 

 I had to tear myself away from this gravy boat as it was one of my faves.

The jam jar posies of sweet peas and nigella were a big hit with the customers.

As were the highly scented bouquets, containing sweet peas, cornflower, nigella, lupins, mint and rosemary to name just a few of the flowers that were used.

The next Penshurst Farmers Market is Saturday 2nd July, hope to see you there.

Summer scents

The wedding at the weekend was an amazing scented affair. Garden roses, sweet peas with rosemary and eucalyptus (with a touch of nigella) created the most beautiful scented bouquets. The car smelt wonderful as I drove off to deliver the bouquets in the sunshine, bliss!!

Off to Chelsea tomorrow, so just a little excitable this evening!

Spring forward...

We spent a gorgeous weekend in the garden, being ever so productive. We are now in to the dangerous cycle of losing track of time and not getting anything else, other than gardening, done now the clocks have gone forward, tonight we were out till 7pm and still could have kept going!

Well I'm hoping I won't regret my impatience, but sweet peas have now been planted outside, gasps I hear... but they were getting a bit tall for the rootrainers and I have been hardening them off by night.

However, I'm obviously not totally relaxed with my decision as I have wrapped all my little babies in fleece for their first night!!!

Spring has most definitely sprung now.

And a very content hound now that the sun is shining!

Dreaming of summer

 It looks as if we are all dreaming of summer in blog world. Sarah over at Modern Country Style is having an English garden party and I want in. We had the best English garden party last summer in the form of our wedding. A lot of hard work went in to the preparations for the big day but we were all thrilled with the final results and we had an amazing day.

And finally the productive part of the garden where I had all the sweet peas growing ready for the big day.

It's still winter but today felt like spring.

Today has been a beautiful clear and sunny day, perfect for getting into the garden to get a few jobs done.  I sowed the next batch of sweet pea seeds, checked over ranunculus and anemones which are sprouting strongly (apart from a few mouldy anemones that smelt pretty rotten!), and watered some poppy seedlings which I had neglected and had gone a bit limp. 

The day culminated with an evening bonfire just as the sun was setting behind the trees.  A day well spent, and now we can sit back and enjoy a glass or two of wine while dinner cooks.

Longing for spring ( & summer!)

I had my first day of the year gardening in the sunshine at the weekend and got a taste for what's to come.
It's still a long way off, but it is lovely to think that these

will be racing up the trellises come summer and looking more like this

I must learn to be patient!

Happy New Year

It looks as if I have already broken my New Years resolutions, as it is the 5th Jan and I'm only just writing the first blog of the year. So much for posting more blogs in 2011!!
Anyway, I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We had a well deserved break after a very busy build up to Christmas.

The last of the christmas arrangements managed to be either collected or delivered, the Pantiles market had a second hit of snow the week before Christmas, but customers would not be beaten by the weather and walked in to town instead.

So we are now looking ahead to the new season, tidying the garden, tending to annual seedlings and sweet peas, which the mice have also tried to tend to! And planning other cut flowers and herbs that can be grown.

Roll on spring!

It's all in the details...

We had such fun planning all the little details that made our day personal to us!

Of course the flowers were a big focus for me, some of which were even home grown.

I spent ages collecting vintage glass celery vases for the tables, each one was different and grouped with smaller vases of roses, scabious and sweet peas.

And more collecting, this time vintage tea cups and saucers, I became totally obsessed with collecting these, only the prettiest will do!

Images by Victoria Fordham.